Security Operations Lead

Title: Security Operations Lead Location: San Francisco / San Francisco, CA

About Goodfire

Goodfire is an AI interpretability research lab. We build interpretability agents and infrastructure to understand, monitor, and align AI models. We believe that AI is the most consequential technology of our time. Yet AI models are trained by trial and error today, with limited understanding of what drives their behavior. Our goal is to advance the research and technology needed to fully understand and align AI so humanity can trust superintelligence. Goodfire is a public benefit corporation founded by researchers who helped pioneer the field of interpretability at OpenAI and Google DeepMind. We are headquartered in San Francisco and have raised over $200M from leading investors including Lightspeed, Menlo, and B Capital.

About the role

We're looking for a Security Operations Lead to be our first security hire and own IT and physical security at Goodfire. The stakes in AI development are extremely high, and we need to protect ourselves against sophisticated, fast-evolving threats, some of which didn't exist 6 months ago. In this role, you will keep Goodfire's people and systems secure without slowing down our fast-moving research and engineering teams. This is a foundational, hands-on role. We need someone who can run all of corporate security, is happy doing the unglamorous work, and understands how the threat model is evolving. You'll define what security looks like for an AI research lab, working closely with our research, engineering, and operations teams.

Key responsibilities

• Identity and access: MFA, SSO, account lifecycle, and device trust.
• Endpoints: device management, EDR, hardening, and patching.
• AI agents and untrusted code: limit what they can reach from our laptops, accounts, and cloud.
• Compliance and customer trust: SOC 2, vendor reviews, and customer security questionnaires.
• Incident response, plus physical security and the network for our San Francisco office.

What you'll bring

Required experience

• 5+ years in IT security or security engineering, with hands-on ownership of identity, endpoints, and corporate systems.
• Experience running SOC 2 audits and enterprise customer security reviews.
• Strong grasp of AI security, particularly how AI agents change the threat model.
• Willingness and humility to own anything security-related yourself, big or small.

Preferred qualifications

• Physical security experience: access control systems and facility security.
• Experience at an early-stage startup or building a security program from scratch.
• Experience at an AI lab or with ML research environments.
• Familiarity with securing cloud infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines.

Our values

Goodfire is looking for individuals who embody our values and share our deep commitment to making interpretability accessible. We are building a team first and foremost.

• Put mission and team first All we do is in service of our mission. We trust each other, deeply care about the success of the organization, and choose to put our team above ourselves.
• Improve constantly We are constantly looking to improve every piece of the business. We proactively critique ourselves and others in a kind and thoughtful way that translates to practical improvements in the organization. We are pragmatic and consistently implement the obvious fixes that work.
• Take ownership and initiative There are no bystanders here. We proactively identify problems and take full responsibility over getting a strong result. We are self-driven, own our mistakes, and feel deep responsibility over what we're building.
• Action today We have a small amount of time to do something incredibly hard and meaningful. The pace and intensity of the organization is high. If we can take action today or tomorrow, we will choose to do it today.

Where we work

We are hiring for this position in our San Francisco HQ. We are in person 5 days a week, with one company-wide remote week per month.

What we offer

This role offers market competitive salary, equity, and competitive benefits. The expected salary range for this position is $200,000 to $350,000 USD. Most importantly, you'll have the opportunity to join a vital mission at an important point in its trajectory — we are developing groundbreaking technology with a world-class team on the critical path to ensuring a safe and beneficial future for humanity. If you want to do your life's work with us, even if you believe you do not meet every single requirement, apply now.